Sunday, 25 October 2015

Yes. THIS one, this we have to a serious conversation about this one here, all by itself.

An extra 30 years of global subservience to the global petrochemical hydrocarbon cartel, paying though the nose for internal combustion, for NO REASON, when we could have had free or almost free energy this whole time, now that we know for ABSOLUTE CERTAIN that Cold Fusion is real, Cold Fusion works, and that it ALWAYS WORKED, right out of the box back in 1989, back when Fleischman and Ponds got drummed out of science and run out of the United States on a rail by the Bush Administration and the Department of Energy...

"I saw that if there was a kind of a financial reward, where the son character cheers because he has a truck in the garage – I thought that the moral aspect ends up being that money equals happiness. And I questioned that, and that was met with a lot of hostility and upset.

O Lord, Won't You Buy Me a 1985 Model Toyota

"Propaganda is essentially fooling people into believing that there’s something good for them, but it’s actually in the interests of the corporations. I mean, you can call anything propaganda. You can say what I’m saying right now is propaganda. I mean, you’re saying – it’s propagating an idea.

But the kind of propaganda that I’m speaking of, that I think is very damaging, is the propaganda that is making people at large feel that what’s being put forth to them is good for their own interests. But in fact, it’s actually best for the corporate interests and it ends up hurting the people at large.

And unfortunately, I think – even though there are very positive things about Back to the Future – there’s very good story structure. There was good writing within it. My argument was, if we just take out the element of wealth as a reward – and it was only that the characters were in love, I would like the film altogether wholly."

Saturday, 17 October 2015

At 5:45 in Washington, D.C., the switchboard at the Pentagon was warned that bombs planted
somewhere in the building would go off in ten minutes. "You killed hundreds of us today in the
streets of Washington," said the woman's voice. "But we are still giving you a chance to evacuate the
building. You do not have time to find the bombs. Leave the Pentagon now, and let history be the
judge of which side truly fought for life and against death."

The highest-ranking personnel in the Pentagon (and, with revolution breaking out in the nation's
capital, everybody was there) were immediately moved to underground bombproof shelters. The
Secretary of Defense, after consulting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that there was a 95
percent probability that the threat was a hoax, intended to disrupt the job of coordinating the
suppression of revolution across the nation. A search would be instituted, but meanwhile work would
go on as usual. "Besides," the Secretary of Defense joked to the Chief of Staff, Army, "one of those little radical bombs would do as much damage to this building as a firecracker would to an elephant."
Somehow the fact that the caller had said bombs (plural) had not gotten through. And the actual
explosions were far more powerful than the caller had implied. Since a proper investigation was
never subsequently undertaken, no one knows precisely what type of explosive was used, how many
bombs there were, how they were introduced into the Pentagon, Where they were placed, and how
they were set off. Nor was the most interesting question of all ever satisfactorily answered: Who
done it? In any case, at 5:55 P.M., Washington time, a series of explosions destroyed one-third of the
river side of the Pentagon, ripping through all four rings from the innermost courtyard to the
outermost wall.

There was great loss of life. Hundreds of people who had been working on that side of the building
were killed. Although the explosion had not visibly touched their bombproof shelter, the Secretary of
Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and numerous other high-ranking military persons were found
dead; it was assumed that the concussion had killed them, and in the ensuing chaos nobody bothered
to examine the bodies carefully. After the explosions the Pentagon was belatedly evacuated, in the
expectation that there might be more of the same. There was no more, but the U.S. military
establishment was temporarily without a head.

Another casualty was Mr. H. C. Winifred of the U.S. Department of Justice. A civil servant with a
long and honorable career behind him, Winifred, apparently deranged by the terrible events of that
day of infamy, took the wheel of a Justice Department limousine and drove wildly, running twenty-
three red lights, to the Pentagon. He raced to the scene of the explosion brandishing a large piece of
chalk, and was trying to draw a chalk line from one side of the gap in the Pentagon wall to the other
when he collapsed and died, apparently of a heart attack.

" Pallas Athena was the Goddess of Wisdom and was supposed to preside over the whole of the intellectual and moral side of human life. She was the patroness of the useful and elegant arts such as weaving (felling), imparting to her devotees the peuculiar Masonic Virtues of Prudence, Courage, Preserverance. She protected the State from outward enemies. The Britannia on our English coins is taken from Pallas. She was credited with being the inventor of musical instruments. The Olive wreath denoting Peace was her emblem. She was a Creator and Preserver.

She was depicted in Greek Art with a Helmet on her head. She held the Spear of Knowledge in her right hand, poised to strike at the Serpent of Ignorance writhing under her foot. The large Helmet denoted that she waged invisibly a silent war against Sloth and Ignorance. She was usually placed on the Greek Temples with a Golden Spear in her hand. When the morning rays of the sun glinted on the weapon, causing it apparently to tremble, the common people were in the habit of saying smilingly : "Athena is Shaking her Spear again." She was thus known as "the Spear Shaker" or the "Shaker of the Spear."

This was the Goddess to whom Francis Bacon plighted his troth when a youth.

The members of this Secret Literary Society which centered in Pallas Athena were known as The Knights of the Helmet. They had a ritual created by Francis Bacon and were initiated with an elaborate ceremonial. There was a vow, recitatives, perambulations.

The Initiate was capped with the Helmet of Pallas to denote he was henceforth an "Invisible" in the fight for Human Advancement.

A large Spear was placed in his hand indicative of a pen for he was to Shake the Spear of Knowledge at the Dragons of Ignorance.

He thus became a "Spear-Shaker", and the head of the little band of "Spear-Shakers" was "Shake-Speare" himself, Athena's visible representative on earth.......Francis Bacon. "

"No one knows better than you yourself, my Führer, that you were never the seventh member of the party, but at best the seventh member of the committee, which I asked you to join as recruitment director.

And a few years ago I had to complain to a party office that your first proper membership card of the DAP, bearing the signatures of Schüssler and myself, was falsified, with the number 555 being erased and number 7 entered. "

"There in the middle of this mall is the Washington Monument, 555feet high. But if we put a 1 in front of that 555 feet, we get 1555, the year that our first fathers landed on the shores of Jamestown, Virginia, as slaves. "

Minister Louis Farrakhan,

Million Man March, Washington DC.

" FIVE is the centre of the soul (feeling) plane and the very centre of the total Birth Chart. It is the spiritual number representing love and freedom of expression.

"SEVENis the symbol of the temple, the human body and its seven chakras or power centres. It is the teaching learning number, the number of practical philosophical experience. Such learning is usually acquired through sacrifice as the means of indelible instruction."

The Purple Sage cursed and waxed sorely pissed and cried out in a loud voice: A pox
upon the accursed Illuminati of Bavaria; may their seed take no root.

May their hands tremble, their eyes dim and their spines curl up, yea, verily, like unto
the backs of snails; and may the vaginal orifices of their women be clogged with Brillo
pads.

For they have sinned against God and Nature; they have made of life a prison; and they
have stolen the green from the grass and the blue from the sky.

And so saying, and grimacing and groaning, the Purple Sage left the world of men and
women and retired to the desert in despair and heavy grumpiness.

But the High Chapperal laughed, and said to the Erisian faithful: Our brother torments
himself with no cause, for even the malign Illuminati are unconscious pawns of the
Divine Plane of Our Lady.

—Mordecai Malignatus, K.N.S.,
"The Book of Contradictions," Liber 555

On April 29, still harboring a cargo of doubt about Hag-bard, Joe Malik decided to try the simplest
method of Tarot divination. Concentrating all his energy on the question,' he cut the deck and out one card that would reveal Hagbard Celine's true nature, if the divination worked. With a sinking
heart, he saw that he had come up with the Hierophant Running the mnemonics Simon had taught
him, Joe quickly identified this figure with the number five, the Hebrew letter Vau (meaning "nail"),
and the traditional interpretation of a false show: a hypocrisy or a trick. Five was the number of
Grummet, the destructive and chaotic end of a cycle. Vau was the letter associated with quarrels, and
the meaning "nail" was often related to the implement of Christ's death. The card was telling him that
Hagbard was a hypocritical trickster aiming at destruction, a murderer of the Dreamer-Redeemer
aspect of humanity. Or, taking a more mystical reading, as was usually advisable with the Tarot,
Hagbard only seemed to be these things, and was actually an agent of Resurrection and Rebirth—as
Christ had to die before he could become the Father, as (in Vedanta) the false "self must be
obliterated to join the great Self. Joe swore. The card was only reflecting his own uncertainty. He
rummaged in the bookshelf Hagbard had provided for his stateroom and found three books on the
Tarot.

The first, a popular manual, was absolutely useless: It identified the Hierophant with the letter
of religion in contrast to the spirit, with conformity, and with all the plastic middle-class values
Hagbard conspicuously lacked.

The second (by a true adept of the Tarot) just led him back to his
own confused reading of the card, remarking that the Hierophant is "mysterious, even sinister. He
seems to be enjoying a very secret joke at somebody's expense."

The third work raised more doubts:
It was Liber 555, by somebody named Mordecai Malignatus, which vaguely reminded Joe that the
old East Village Other chart of the Illuminati conspiracy showed a "Mordecai the Foul" in charge of
the Sphere of Chaos— and "Mordecai Malignatus" was a fair Latinization of "Mordecai the Foul."
Mordecai, Joe remembered, was, according to that half-accurate and half-deceptive chart, in dual
control (along with Richard Nixon, then living) of the Elders of Zion, the House of Rothschild, the
Politburo, the Federal Reserve System, the U.S. Communist Party, and Students for a Democratic
Society. Joe flipped the pages to see what the semimythical Mord had to say about the Hierophant.
The chapter was brief; it was in "The Book of Republicans and Sinners," and said:

5 Vau
(nail)

THE HIEROPHANT

They nailed Love
to a Cross
Symbolic of their
Might

But Love was
undefeated
It simply didn't
fight.

Five stoned men were in a courtyard when an elephant entered.

The first man was stoned on sleep, and he saw not the elephant but dreamed instead of things unreal to those awake.

The second man was stoned on nicotine, caffeine, DDT, carbohydrate excess,
protein deficiency, and the other chemicals in the diet which the Illuminati have
enforced upon the half-awake to keep them from fully waking.

"Hey," he said,
"there's a big, smelly beast in our courtyard."

The third stoned man was on grass, and he said, "No, dads, that's the Ghostly Old
Party in its true nature, the Dark Nix on the Soul," and he giggled in a silly way.
The fourth stoned man was tripping on peyote, and he said, "You see not the
mystery, for the elephant is a poem written in tons instead of words," and his eyes
danced.

The fifth stoned man was on acid, and he said nothing, merely worshipping the
elephant in silence as the Father of Buddha.

And then the Hierophant entered and drove a nafl of mystery into all their hearts,
saying, "You are all elephants!"
Nobody understood him.

"Occultists recognize what they regard as the immense inherent spiritual power of numbers. Astrology is highly mathematical, and its most important use is to clothe events in time. Occultists seek to plan and time events according to what they consider to be the most favorably disposed time. Experts in numerology use the numbers to determine the best time for major moves and activities in life. Numerology is used to decide when to invest, when to marry, when to travel, when to change jobs, or relocate. Prime Minister Tony Blair of England declared recently the next UK election to be for 5/5/05, "Mr Blair's position as Prime Minister gave him the chance not just to choose the date, but to make the first play for votes of the campaign." "Mr Blair attempts to become the first Labour leader to win three (The heightened Power of '3' x 5) successive terms in power." http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1555776,00.html

GEORGE W BUSH DECLARES CEASE IN IRAQ WAR : THIS WAR BEGAN, AND ENDED, ON OCCULT HOLIDAYS AND WAS FILLED WITH OCCULT CONSIDERATIONS THROUGHOUT!

As with any occult undertaking, the Iraq War was conducted strictly according to occult holidays and occult numbers. Once you understand this reality, you will see that this war is likely Act I of a global war. The 2003 Iraq war was fought most strikingly by occult numbers,

War Beginning: President Bush began this war at 05:50 Baghdad time, on March 20th, 2003(the Feast Day celebration, eve of eve of Ostara), according to occult considerations, March 20th, 2003 was Day "555" since the attacks on 9/11. The Illuminati intended the attacks of 9/11 to be the first blow struck for the appearance of Antichrist; The occultist believes "5" to be the Number of Death, and the greatest intensification of any number to be a triplicate, a "555" literally means "Highest Death".

The 48 hour ultimatum to Saddam and his sons precisely paralleled the Jewish holiday, Purim.

President Bush deliberately chose March 20th, 2003 as the start of his war against Iraq because of important occult and current Jewish, considerations. Now, let us examine the end of this war.

War Ending: President Bush flew to the aircraft carrier, Abraham Lincoln, to declare that the major combat phase in the Iraqi War was over on May 1st, 2003, May 1 is the second-most important satanic holiday, and is known as Beltane. This holiday is a 2-day event, April 30th - May 1st. Beltane Festival, also called Walpurgis Night. However, this is the highest day on the Druidic Witch's Calendar. May 1st is the Illuminati's second most sacred holiday. Human sacrifice is required.

Occultists multiply and add numbers in order to create other sacred numbers -- they also group numbers in ways that will be recognizable to other occultists. They often use the principle of intensification, that greater power is derived from groupings. Regarding the number 3, intensification is achieved when it is shown as 33, or 333. Obviously twice 333 is 666. The use of 333 by occultists is a blind to conceal the more offensive 666. 333 can serve as an "occult signature" when it is used to clothe an event in time -- only fellow travelers will recognize this signature (remember 555?). Similarly, 999 also conceals 666. Likewise, 39 conceals 13. Hitler chose to begin WW2 in '39. Thrice 11 is 33, and both Roosevelt and Hitler came to power in '33. Both were committed to the establishment of the New World Order.

Satanists believe numbers contain inherent power: great spiritual and temporal power. They literally believe that, if they attempt to launch a great and perfect plan, but do so without arranging the plan according to the correct occult power numbers, the plan could fail! In fact, when you see an event constructed according to the correct occult numbers, you may know that the event is occultic, no matter what rhetoric is filling your ears!

Members of secret societies, such as Masonic Lodges of the Grand Orient, in their highest levels use the words "unknown superiors" to describe the force that guides them and their efforts. When the Illuminati was formed on Walpurgisnacht (eve of May 1st), 1776, five men gathered in a cavern deep beneath Ingolstadt in Bavaria and made contact with what they said were "unknown superiors." One of these five men was Dr. Adam Weishaupt.

The name Adam Weishaupt is profound in the sense that his name means "first man to know the superiors." Here let it be noted that the five founders of the Illuminati used witchcraft rituals known as "The greater and lesser keys of Solomon", which involved the "Pentacle of Invocation." The pentacle is a three-dimensional, five-pointed star, and the number five became sacred to the Illuminati. We must also note that the Rothschild family consisted of five sons of one Moses Amschel Bauer, who took the name Rothschild, because it means "Red Shield." Much later, a man named John D. Rockefeller also had five sons to control the American branch of Illuminism. The Illuminati and all of witchcraft is obsessed with the Pentacle of Invocation, and is it any wonder that the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. is exactly 555 feet high? Is it any wonder that we have a five-sided death house, known as the Pentagon?

'55, 555, 55:55' the universe is making changes for you whether you ask for it or not. Allow the currents to take you into a new future full of possibilities still hidden from you at this point of seeing.

Wednesday, 7 October 2015

Great & Fake Oath

I (name), now in the presence of Almighty God the Father, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Blessed St. John the Baptist, the saints, sacred host of Heaven, to you my Ghostly Father, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius Loyola, in the pontification of Paul IV and continued to the present, do, by the womb of the Virgin, the matrix of God, and the rod of Jesus Christ, declare and swear that His Holiness the Pope is Christ's vice-Regent and the true and only head of the Catholic or Universal Church throughout the earth, and that by virtue of the keys of binding and loosing given His Holiness by my Savior, Jesus Christ, he hath power to depose heretical kings, princes, states, commonwealths, and governments and they may be safely destroyed. . . .

"I do further promise and declare that I will have no opinion or will of my own or any mental reservation whatsoever, even as a corpse or cadaver, but will unhesitatingly obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors in the militia of the Pope and Jesus Christ. . . .

"I do further promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly and openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Masons, as I am directed to extirpate them from the face of the whole earth. And that I will spare neither age, sex nor condition, and that I will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women, and crush their infants' heads against the walls in order to annihilate their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly I will secretly use the poisonous cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity or authority of the persons ... at any time I may be directed to do so by the agents of the Pope. . . ."

The Knights of Columbus seem a mild and indeed a charitable organization. It will not therefore be easy for the average person to believe that the above great swear is the fourth degree oath of the Knights of Columbus. There are those, however, who know better, and who have spent thousands of dollars circulating copies of this oath among ignorant Protestants. Aware of this and aware also that the oath has never and will never be a part of its ritual, the Knights of Columbus, meeting in National Conference last week in Cleveland, promised to prosecute six unnamed organizations and persons, for disseminating the bogus information.

The authentic "fourth degree" oath is as follows:

I swear to support the Constitution of the United States. I pledge myself as a Catholic citizen and a Knight of Columbus to enlighten myself fully upon my duties as a citizen and to conscientiously perform such duties entirely in the interests of my country and regardless of all personal consequences. I pledge myself to do all in my power to preserve the integrity and purity of the ballot, to promote reverence and respect for law and order. I promise to practice my religion openly and consistently, but without ostentation, and to so conduct myself in public affairs, and in the exercise of public virtue as to reflect nothing but credit upon the Holy Church, to the end that she may flourish and our country prosper to the greater honor and glory of God.

When the great and fake oath was first penned or by whom, nobody can say. It was circulated first in Chester County, Pa., about 1912; it was read into the Congressional Record during a discussion in regard to the seating in Congress of the Hon. Thomas S. Butler, charged with its circulation in an effort to excite religious antipathies. It is doubtful whether Thomas Butler himself wrote the oath. The career of the bogus oath has been obscure; five years ago it was considered obsolete; recently no less than a million copies have been handed about. The Knights of Columbus offered $25,000 to anyone who could prove it to be part of their ritual. No one bothered to do so.

In Cleveland, last week, the Knights of Columbus involved themselves in deeds of political crime and bloodshed only so far as to ask the U. S. government to lend its "moral pressure and influence" in order to better the "unfortunate and distressing circumstances" of Catholics in Mexico. Also, as is often the case, they paraded and danced.

Monday, 5 October 2015

" A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy. A woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused.

A woman enjoys intercourse with her man — as she fantasizes being raped by 3 men simultaneously.

The man and woman get dressed up on Sunday — and go to Church, or maybe to their “revolutionary” political meeting.

Have you ever looked at the Stag, Man, Hero, Tough magazines on the shelf of your local bookstore? Do you know why the newspapers with the articles like “Girl 12 raped by 14 men” sell so well? To what in us are they appealing?

Women, for their own preservation, are trying to pull themselves for all of humanity that they do so. Slavishness on one hand breeds pigness on the other hand. Pigness on one hand hand breeds slavishness on the other, Men and women — both are losers. Women adapt themselves to full the needs of men, and men adapt themselves to fill the needs of women. In the beginning there were strong men who killed the animals and brought home the food — and the dependent women who cooked it. No more! Only the roles remain –waiting to be shaken off. There are no “human” oppressors. Oppressors have lost their humanity. On one hand “slavishness,” one the other hand “pigness.” Six of one, half dozen of the other, Who wins?

Many women seem to be walking a tightrope now. Their qualities of love, openness and gentleness were too deeply enmeshed with qualities of dependency, subservience, and masochism. How do you love — with-out being dependent? How do you be gentle — without being subservient? How do you maintain a relationship without giving up your identity and getting strung out? How do you reach out and give your heart to your lover, but maintain the soul which is you?

And Men. Men are in pain too. They are thinking, wondering. What is it they want from a woman? Are they at fault? Are they perpetrating this man-woman situation? Are they oppressors?

The man is bitter.“You lied to me,” he said. (She did).

“You said that you loved me, that you wanted me, that you needed me. Those are your words.” (They are).“But in reality,” he said, “If you ever love me, or wanted me, or needed me (all of which I’m not certain was ever true), you also hated me. You hated me — just as you have hated every man in your entire life, but you didn’t have the guts to tell me that. You hated me before you ever saw me, even though I was not your father, or your teacher, or your sex friend when you were 13 years old, or your husband. You hated me not because of who I am, or what I was to you, but because I am a man. You did not deal with me as a person — as me. You lived a lie with me, used me and played games with me — and that’s a piggy thing to do.”

And she said, “You wanted me not as a woman, or as a lover, or a friend, but as a submissive woman, or submissive friend , or submissive lover; and right now where my head is I balk at even the slightest suspicion of that kind of demand.

And he said, “You’re full of _______.”

And they never again made love together (which they had each liked to do more than anything) or never ever saw each other one more time. "

" In the days of old the gods had the whole earth distributed among them by allotment.Holding our souls by the rudder of persuasion according to their own pleasure;-thus did they guide all mortal creatures. Now different gods had their allotments in different places which they set in order... "

"Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows - ..." *

* The rest of the Dialogue of Critias has been lost.

"But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea."

Sacred Texts Classics Plato CRITIAS

by Plato

360 BC

translated by Benjamin Jowett

New York, C. Scribner's Sons, [1871]

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: CRITIAS; HERMOCRATES; TIMAEUS; SOCRATES

Timaeus : How thankful I am, Socrates, that I have arrived at last, and, like a weary traveller after a long journey, may be at rest! And I pray the being who always was of old, and has now been by me revealed, to grant that my words may endure in so far as they have been spoken truly and acceptably to him; but if unintentionally I have said anything wrong, I pray that he will impose upon me a just retribution, and the just retribution of him who errs is that he should be set right. Wishing, then, to speak truly in future concerning the generation of the gods, I pray him to give me knowledge, which of all medicines is the most perfect and best. And now having offered my prayer I deliver up the argument to Critias, who is to speak next according to our agreement.

Critias : And I, Timaeus, accept the trust, and as you at first said that you were going to speak of high matters, and begged that some forbearance might be shown to you, I too ask the same or greater forbearance for what I am about to say. And although I very well know that my request may appear to be somewhat and discourteous, I must make it nevertheless. For will any man of sense deny that you have spoken well? I can only attempt to show that I ought to have more indulgence than you, because my theme is more difficult; and I shall argue that to seem to speak well of the gods to men is far easier than to speak well of men to men: for the inexperience and utter ignorance of his hearers about any subject is a great assistance to him who has to speak of it, and we know how ignorant we are concerning the gods. But I should like to make my meaning clearer, if Timaeus, you will follow me. All that is said by any of us can only be imitation and representation. For if we consider the likenesses which painters make of bodies divine and heavenly, and the different degrees of gratification with which the eye of the spectator receives them, we shall see that we are satisfied with the artist who is able in any degree to imitate the earth and its mountains, and the rivers, and the woods, and the universe, and the things that are and move therein, and further, that knowing nothing precise about such matters, we do not examine or analyze the painting; all that is required is a sort of indistinct and deceptive mode of shadowing them forth. But when a person endeavours to paint the human form we are quick at finding out defects, and our familiar knowledge makes us severe judges of any one who does not render every point of similarity. And we may observe the same thing to happen in discourse; we are satisfied with a picture of divine and heavenly things which has very little likeness to them; but we are more precise in our criticism of mortal and human things. Wherefore if at the moment of speaking I cannot suitably express my meaning, you must excuse me, considering that to form approved likenesses of human things is the reverse of easy. This is what I want to suggest to you, and at the same time to beg, Socrates, that I may have not less, but more indulgence conceded to me in what I am about to say. Which favour, if I am right in asking, I hope that you will be ready to grant.

Socrates. Certainly, Critias, we will grant your request, and we will grant the same by anticipation to Hermocrates, as well as to you and Timaeus; for I have no doubt that when his turn comes a little while hence, he will make the same request which you have made. In order, then, that he may provide himself with a fresh beginning, and not be compelled to say the same things over again, let him understand that the indulgence is already extended by anticipation to him. And now, friend Critias, I will announce to you the judgment of the theatre. They are of opinion that the last performer was wonderfully successful, and that you will need a great deal of indulgence before you will be able to take his place.

Hermocrates. The warning, Socrates, which you have addressed to him, I must also take to myself. But remember, Critias, that faint heart never yet raised a trophy; and therefore you must go and attack the argument like a man. First invoke Apollo and the Muses, and then let us hear you sound the praises and show forth the virtues of your ancient citizens.

Crit. Friend Hermocrates, you, who are stationed last and have another in front of you, have not lost heart as yet; the gravity of the situation will soon be revealed to you; meanwhile I accept your exhortations and encouragements. But besides the gods and goddesses whom you have mentioned, I would specially invoke Mnemosyne; for all the important part of my discourse is dependent on her favour, and if I can recollect and recite enough of what was said by the priests and brought hither by Solon, I doubt not that I shall satisfy the requirements of this theatre. And now, making no more excuses, I will proceed.

Let me begin by observing first of all, that nine thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place between those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and all who dwelt within them; this war I am going to describe. Of the combatants on the one side, the city of Athens was reported to have been the leader and to have fought out the war; the combatants on the other side were commanded by the kings of Atlantis, which, as was saying, was an island greater in extent than Libya and Asia, and when afterwards sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean. The progress of the history will unfold the various nations of barbarians and families of Hellenes which then existed, as they successively appear on the scene; but I must describe first of all Athenians of that day, and their enemies who fought with them, and then the respective powers and governments of the two kingdoms. Let us give the precedence to Athens.

In the days of old the gods had the whole earth distributed among them by allotment. There was no quarrelling; for you cannot rightly suppose that the gods did not know what was proper for each of them to have, or, knowing this, that they would seek to procure for themselves by contention that which more properly belonged to others. They all of them by just apportionment obtained what they wanted, and peopled their own districts; and when they had peopled them they tended us, their nurselings and possessions, as shepherds tend their flocks, excepting only that they did not use blows or bodily force, as shepherds do, but governed us like pilots from the stern of the vessel, which is an easy way of guiding animals, holding our souls by the rudder of persuasion according to their own pleasure;-thus did they guide all mortal creatures. Now different gods had their allotments in different places which they set in order. Hephaestus and Athene, who were brother and sister, and sprang from the same father, having a common nature, and being united also in the love of philosophy and art, both obtained as their common portion this land, which was naturally adapted for wisdom and virtue; and there they implanted brave children of the soil, and put into their minds the order of government; their names are preserved, but their actions have disappeared by reason of the destruction of those who received the tradition, and the lapse of ages. For when there were any survivors, as I have already said, they were men who dwelt in the mountains; and they were ignorant of the art of writing, and had heard only the names of the chiefs of the land, but very little about their actions. The names they were willing enough to give to their children; but the virtues and the laws of their predecessors, they knew only by obscure traditions; and as they themselves and their children lacked for many generations the necessaries of life, they directed their attention to the supply of their wants, and of them they conversed, to the neglect of events that had happened in times long past; for mythology and the enquiry into antiquity are first introduced into cities when they begin to have leisure, and when they see that the necessaries of life have already been provided, but not before. And this is reason why the names of the ancients have been preserved to us and not their actions. This I infer because Solon said that the priests in their narrative of that war mentioned most of the names which are recorded prior to the time of Theseus, such as Cecrops, and Erechtheus, and Erichthonius, and Erysichthon, and the names of the women in like manner. Moreover, since military pursuits were then common to men and women, the men of those days in accordance with the custom of the time set up a figure and image of the goddess in full armour, to be a testimony that all animals which associate together, male as well as female, may, if they please, practise in common the virtue which belongs to them without distinction of sex.

Now the country was inhabited in those days by various classes of citizens;-there were artisans, and there were husbandmen, and there was also a warrior class originally set apart by divine men. The latter dwelt by themselves, and had all things suitable for nurture and education; neither had any of them anything of their own, but they regarded all that they had as common property; nor did they claim to receive of the other citizens anything more than their necessary food. And they practised all the pursuits which we yesterday described as those of our imaginary guardians. Concerning the country the Egyptian priests said what is not only probable but manifestly true, that the boundaries were in those days fixed by the Isthmus, and that in the direction of the continent they extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes; the boundary line came down in the direction of the sea, having the district of Oropus on the right, and with the river Asopus as the limit on the left. The land was the best in the world, and was therefore able in those days to support a vast army, raised from the surrounding people. Even the remnant of Attica which now exists may compare with any region in the world for the variety and excellence of its fruits and the suitableness of its pastures to every sort of animal, which proves what I am saying; but in those days the country was fair as now and yielded far more abundant produce. How shall I establish my words? and what part of it can be truly called a remnant of the land that then was? The whole country is only a long promontory extending far into the sea away from the rest of the continent, while the surrounding basin of the sea is everywhere deep in the neighbourhood of the shore. Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years, for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which I am speaking; and during all this time and through so many changes, there has never been any considerable accumulation of the soil coming down from the mountains, as in other places, but the earth has fallen away all round and sunk out of sight. The consequence is, that in comparison of what then was, there are remaining only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be called, as in the case of small islands, all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the land being left. But in the primitive state of the country, its mountains were high hills covered with soil, and the plains, as they are termed by us, of Phelleus were full of rich earth, and there was abundance of wood in the mountains. Of this last the traces still remain, for although some of the mountains now only afford sustenance to bees, not so very long ago there were still to be seen roofs of timber cut from trees growing there, which were of a size sufficient to cover the largest houses; and there were many other high trees, cultivated by man and bearing abundance of food for cattle. Moreover, the land reaped the benefit of the annual rainfall, not as now losing the water which flows off the bare earth into the sea, but, having an abundant supply in all places, and receiving it into herself and treasuring it up in the close clay soil, it let off into the hollows the streams which it absorbed from the heights, providing everywhere abundant fountains and rivers, of which there may still be observed sacred memorials in places where fountains once existed; and this proves the truth of what I am saying.

Such was the natural state of the country, which was cultivated, as we may well believe, by true husbandmen, who made husbandry their business, and were lovers of honour, and of a noble nature, and had a soil the best in the world, and abundance of water, and in the heaven above an excellently attempered climate. Now the city in those days was arranged on this wise. In the first place the Acropolis was not as now. For the fact is that a single night of excessive rain washed away the earth and laid bare the rock; at the same time there were earthquakes, and then occurred the extraordinary inundation, which was the third before the great destruction of Deucalion. But in primitive times the hill of the Acropolis extended to the Eridanus and Ilissus, and included the Pnyx on one side, and the Lycabettus as a boundary on the opposite side to the Pnyx, and was all well covered with soil, and level at the top, except in one or two places. Outside the Acropolis and under the sides of the hill there dwelt artisans, and such of the husbandmen as were tilling the ground near; the warrior class dwelt by themselves around the temples of Athene and Hephaestus at the summit, which moreover they had enclosed with a single fence like the garden of a single house. On the north side they had dwellings in common and had erected halls for dining in winter, and had all the buildings which they needed for their common life, besides temples, but there was no adorning of them with gold and silver, for they made no use of these for any purpose; they took a middle course between meanness and ostentation, and built modest houses in which they and their children's children grew old, and they handed them down to others who were like themselves, always the same. But in summer-time they left their gardens and gymnasia and dining halls, and then the southern side of the hill was made use of by them for the same purpose. Where the Acropolis now is there was a fountain, which was choked by the earthquake, and has left only the few small streams which still exist in the vicinity, but in those days the fountain gave an abundant supply of water for all and of suitable temperature in summer and in winter. This is how they dwelt, being the guardians of their own citizens and the leaders of the Hellenes, who were their willing followers. And they took care to preserve the same number of men and women through all time, being so many as were required for warlike purposes, then as now-that is to say, about twenty thousand. Such were the ancient Athenians, and after this manner they righteously administered their own land and the rest of Hellas; they were renowned all over Europe and Asia for the beauty of their persons and for the many virtues of their souls, and of all men who lived in those days they were the most illustrious. And next, if I have not forgotten what I heard when I was a child, I will impart to you the character and origin of their adversaries. For friends should not keep their stories to themselves, but have them in common.

Yet, before proceeding further in the narrative, I ought to warn you, that you must not be surprised if you should perhaps hear Hellenic names given to foreigners. I will tell you the reason of this: Solon, who was intending to use the tale for his poem, enquired into the meaning of the names, and found that the early Egyptians in writing them down had translated them into their own language, and he recovered the meaning of the several names and when copying them out again translated them into our language. My great-grandfather, Dropides, had the original writing, which is still in my possession, and was carefully studied by me when I was a child. Therefore if you hear names such as are used in this country, you must not be surprised, for I have told how they came to be introduced. The tale, which was of great length, began as follows:-

I have before remarked in speaking of the allotments of the gods, that they distributed the whole earth into portions differing in extent, and made for themselves temples and instituted sacrifices. And Poseidon, receiving for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island, which I will describe. Looking towards the sea, but in the centre of the whole island, there was a plain which is said to have been the fairest of all plains and very fertile. Near the plain again, and also in the centre of the island at a distance of about fifty stadia, there was a mountain not very high on any side.

In this mountain there dwelt one of the earth born primeval men of that country, whose name was Evenor, and he had a wife named Leucippe, and they had an only daughter who was called Cleito. The maiden had already reached womanhood, when her father and mother died; Poseidon fell in love with her and had intercourse with her, and breaking the ground, inclosed the hill in which she dwelt all round, making alternate zones of sea and land larger and smaller, encircling one another; there were two of land and three of water, which he turned as with a lathe, each having its circumference equidistant every way from the centre, so that no man could get to the island, for ships and voyages were not as yet. He himself, being a god, found no difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre island, bringing up two springs of water from beneath the earth, one of warm water and the other of cold, and making every variety of food to spring up abundantly from the soil. He also begat and brought up five pairs of twin male children; and dividing the island of Atlantis into ten portions, he gave to the first-born of the eldest pair his mother's dwelling and the surrounding allotment, which was the largest and best, and made him king over the rest; the others he made princes, and gave them rule over many men, and a large territory. And he named them all; the eldest, who was the first king, he named Atlas, and after him the whole island and the ocean were called Atlantic. To his twin brother, who was born after him, and obtained as his lot the extremity of the island towards the Pillars of Heracles, facing the country which is now called the region of Gades in that part of the world, he gave the name which in the Hellenic language is Eumelus, in the language of the country which is named after him, Gadeirus. Of the second pair of twins he called one Ampheres, and the other Evaemon. To the elder of the third pair of twins he gave the name Mneseus, and Autochthon to the one who followed him. Of the fourth pair of twins he called the elder Elasippus, and the younger Mestor. And of the fifth pair he gave to the elder the name of Azaes, and to the younger that of Diaprepes. All these and their descendants for many generations were the inhabitants and rulers of divers islands in the open sea; and also, as has been already said, they held sway in our direction over the country within the Pillars as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia.

Now Atlas had a numerous and honourable family, and they retained the kingdom, the eldest son handing it on to his eldest for many generations; and they had such an amount of wealth as was never before possessed by kings and potentates, and is not likely ever to be again, and they were furnished with everything which they needed, both in the city and country. For because of the greatness of their empire many things were brought to them from foreign countries, and the island itself provided most of what was required by them for the uses of life. In the first place, they dug out of the earth whatever was to be found there, solid as well as fusile, and that which is now only a name and was then something more than a name, orichalcum, was dug out of the earth in many parts of the island, being more precious in those days than anything except gold. There was an abundance of wood for carpenter's work, and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the island; for as there was provision for all other sorts of animals, both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains, so there was for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of all. Also whatever fragrant things there now are in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or essences which distil from fruit and flower, grew and thrived in that land; also the fruit which admits of cultivation, both the dry sort, which is given us for nourishment and any other which we use for food-we call them all by the common name pulse, and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments, and good store of chestnuts and the like, which furnish pleasure and amusement, and are fruits which spoil with keeping, and the pleasant kinds of dessert, with which we console ourselves after dinner, when we are tired of eating-all these that sacred island which then beheld the light of the sun, brought forth fair and wondrous and in infinite abundance. With such blessings the earth freely furnished them; meanwhile they went on constructing their temples and palaces and harbours and docks. And they arranged the whole country in the following manner:

First of all they bridged over the zones of sea which surrounded the ancient metropolis, making a road to and from the royal palace. And at the very beginning they built the palace in the habitation of the god and of their ancestors, which they continued to ornament in successive generations, every king surpassing the one who went before him to the utmost of his power, until they made the building a marvel to behold for size and for beauty. And beginning from the sea they bored a canal of three hundred feet in width and one hundred feet in depth and fifty stadia in length, which they carried through to the outermost zone, making a passage from the sea up to this, which became a harbour, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress. Moreover, they divided at the bridges the zones of land which parted the zones of sea, leaving room for a single trireme to pass out of one zone into another, and they covered over the channels so as to leave a way underneath for the ships; for the banks were raised considerably above the water. Now the largest of the zones into which a passage was cut from the sea was three stadia in breadth, and the zone of land which came next of equal breadth; but the next two zones, the one of water, the other of land, were two stadia, and the one which surrounded the central island was a stadium only in width. The island in which the palace was situated had a diameter of five stadia. All this including the zones and the bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width, they surrounded by a stone wall on every side, placing towers and gates on the bridges where the sea passed in. The stone which was used in the work they quarried from underneath the centre island, and from underneath the zones, on the outer as well as the inner side. One kind was white, another black, and a third red, and as they quarried, they at the same time hollowed out double docks, having roofs formed out of the native rock. Some of their buildings were simple, but in others they put together different stones, varying the colour to please the eye, and to be a natural source of delight. The entire circuit of the wall, which went round the outermost zone, they covered with a coating of brass, and the circuit of the next wall they coated with tin, and the third, which encompassed the citadel, flashed with the red light of orichalcum.

The palaces in the interior of the citadel were constructed on this wise:-in the centre was a holy temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon, which remained inaccessible, and was surrounded by an enclosure of gold; this was the spot where the family of the ten princes first saw the light, and thither the people annually brought the fruits of the earth in their season from all the ten portions, to be an offering to each of the ten. Here was Poseidon's own temple which was a stadium in length, and half a stadium in width, and of a proportionate height, having a strange barbaric appearance. All the outside of the temple, with the exception of the pinnacles, they covered with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. In the interior of the temple the roof was of ivory, curiously wrought everywhere with gold and silver and orichalcum; and all the other parts, the walls and pillars and floor, they coated with orichalcum. In the temple they placed statues of gold: there was the god himself standing in a chariot-the charioteer of six winged horses-and of such a size that he touched the roof of the building with his head; around him there were a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for such was thought to be the number of them by the men of those days. There were also in the interior of the temple other images which had been dedicated by private persons. And around the temple on the outside were placed statues of gold of all the descendants of the ten kings and of their wives, and there were many other great offerings of kings and of private persons, coming both from the city itself and from the foreign cities over which they held sway. There was an altar too, which in size and workmanship corresponded to this magnificence, and the palaces, in like manner, answered to the greatness of the kingdom and the glory of the temple.

In the next place, they had fountains, one of cold and another of hot water, in gracious plenty flowing; and they were wonderfully adapted for use by reason of the pleasantness and excellence of their waters. They constructed buildings about them and planted suitable trees, also they made cisterns, some open to the heavens, others roofed over, to be used in winter as warm baths; there were the kings' baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept apart; and there were separate baths for women, and for horses and cattle, and to each of them they gave as much adornment as was suitable. Of the water which ran off they carried some to the grove of Poseidon, where were growing all manner of trees of wonderful height and beauty, owing to the excellence of the soil, while the remainder was conveyed by aqueducts along the bridges to the outer circles; and there were many temples built and dedicated to many gods; also gardens and places of exercise, some for men, and others for horses in both of the two islands formed by the zones; and in the centre of the larger of the two there was set apart a race-course of a stadium in width, and in length allowed to extend all round the island, for horses to race in. Also there were guardhouses at intervals for the guards, the more trusted of whom were appointed-to keep watch in the lesser zone, which was nearer the Acropolis while the most trusted of all had houses given them within the citadel, near the persons of the kings. The docks were full of triremes and naval stores, and all things were quite ready for use. Enough of the plan of the royal palace.

Leaving the palace and passing out across the three you came to a wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere distant fifty stadia from the largest zone or harbour, and enclosed the whole, the ends meeting at the mouth of the channel which led to the sea. The entire area was densely crowded with habitations; and the canal and the largest of the harbours were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human voices, and din and clatter of all sorts night and day.

I have described the city and the environs of the ancient palace nearly in the words of Solon, and now I must endeavour to represent the nature and arrangement of the rest of the land. The whole country was said by him to be very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended towards the sea; it was smooth and even, and of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, but across the centre inland it was two thousand stadia. This part of the island looked towards the south, and was sheltered from the north. The surrounding mountains were celebrated for their number and size and beauty, far beyond any which still exist, having in them also many wealthy villages of country folk, and rivers, and lakes, and meadows supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and much wood of various sorts, abundant for each and every kind of work.

I will now describe the plain, as it was fashioned by nature and by the labours of many generations of kings through long ages. It was for the most part rectangular and oblong, and where falling out of the straight line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and width, and length of this ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that a work of such extent, in addition to so many others, could never have been artificial. Nevertheless I must say what I was told. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred, feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length. It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and winding round the plain and meeting at the city, was there let off into the sea. Further inland, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from it through the plain, and again let off into the ditch leading to the sea: these canals were at intervals of a hundred stadia, and by them they brought down the wood from the mountains to the city, and conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into another, and to the city. Twice in the year they gathered the fruits of the earth-in winter having the benefit of the rains of heaven, and in summer the water which the land supplied by introducing streams from the canals.

As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had to find a leader for the men who were fit for military service, and the size of a lot was a square of ten stadia each way, and the total number of all the lots was sixty thousand. And of the inhabitants of the mountains and of the rest of the country there was also a vast multitude, which was distributed among the lots and had leaders assigned to them according to their districts and villages. The leader was required to furnish for the war the sixth portion of a war-chariot, so as to make up a total of ten thousand chariots; also two horses and riders for them, and a pair of chariot-horses without a seat, accompanied by a horseman who could fight on foot carrying a small shield, and having a charioteer who stood behind the man-at-arms to guide the two horses; also, he was bound to furnish two heavy armed soldiers, two slingers, three stone-shooters and three javelin-men, who were light-armed, and four sailors to make up the complement of twelve hundred ships. Such was the military order of the royal city-the order of the other nine governments varied, and it would be wearisome to recount their several differences.

As to offices and honours, the following was the arrangement from the first. Each of the ten kings in his own division and in his own city had the absolute control of the citizens, and, in most cases, of the laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever he would. Now the order of precedence among them and their mutual relations were regulated by the commands of Poseidon which the law had handed down. These were inscribed by the first kings on a pillar of orichalcum, which was situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon, whither the kings were gathered together every fifth and every sixth year alternately, thus giving equal honour to the odd and to the even number. And when they were gathered together they consulted about their common interests, and enquired if any one had transgressed in anything and passed judgment and before they passed judgment they gave their pledges to one another on this wise:-There were bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten kings, being left alone in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the god that they might capture the victim which was acceptable to him, hunted the bulls, without weapons but with staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the pillar and cut its throat over the top of it so that the blood fell upon the sacred inscription. Now on the pillar, besides the laws, there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When therefore, after slaying the bull in the accustomed manner, they had burnt its limbs, they filled a bowl of wine and cast in a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they put in the fire, after having purified the column all round. Then they drew from the bowl in golden cups and pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that they would judge according to the laws on the pillar, and would punish him who in any point had already transgressed them, and that for the future they would not, if they could help, offend against the writing on the pillar, and would neither command others, nor obey any ruler who commanded them, to act otherwise than according to the laws of their father Poseidon. This was the prayer which each of them-offered up for himself and for his descendants, at the same time drinking and dedicating the cup out of which he drank in the temple of the god; and after they had supped and satisfied their needs, when darkness came on, and the fire about the sacrifice was cool, all of them put on most beautiful azure robes, and, sitting on the ground, at night, over the embers of the sacrifices by which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple, they received and gave judgment, if any of them had an accusation to bring against any one; and when they given judgment, at daybreak they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet, and dedicated it together with their robes to be a memorial.

There were many special laws affecting the several kings inscribed about the temples, but the most important was the following: They were not to take up arms against one another, and they were all to come to the rescue if any one in any of their cities attempted to overthrow the royal house; like their ancestors, they were to deliberate in common about war and other matters, giving the supremacy to the descendants of Atlas. And the king was not to have the power of life and death over any of his kinsmen unless he had the assent of the majority of the ten.

Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of Atlantis; and this he afterwards directed against our land for the following reasons, as tradition tells: For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned towards the god, whose seed they were; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtue and friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for them, they are lost and friendship with them. By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, the qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows-*

* The rest of the Dialogue of Critias has been lost.

-THE END-

And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander. About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and the destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us. Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom Solon heard this veritable tradition. He replied: - In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them. To this city came Solon, and was received there with great honour; he asked the priests who were most skilful in such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our part of the world-about Phoroneus, who is called "the first man," and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he was speaking happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you.Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore. And from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us. When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient. The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed-if there were any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples. Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves.

As for those genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children. In the first place you remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; in the next place, you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. And this was unknown to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction died, leaving no written word. For there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war and in every way the best governed of all cities, is said to have performed the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of heaven.Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested the priests to inform him exactly and in order about these former citizens. You are welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the priest, both for your own sake and for that of your city, and above all, for the sake of the goddess who is the common patron and parent and educator of both our cities.

She founded your city a thousand years before ours, receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your race, and afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution is recorded in our sacred registers to be eight thousand years old.

As touching your citizens of nine thousand years ago, I will briefly inform you of their laws and of their most famous action; the exact particulars of the whole we will hereafter go through at our leisure in the sacred registers themselves.

If you compare these very laws with ours you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours as they were in the olden time. In the first place, there is the caste of priests, which is separated from all the others; next, there are the artificers, who ply their several crafts by themselves and do not intermix; and also there is the class of shepherds and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too, that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the other classes, and are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to military pursuits; moreover, the weapons which they carry are shields and spears, a style of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiatics first to us, as in your part of the world first to you. Then as to wisdom, do you observe how our law from the very first made a study of the whole order of things, extending even to prophecy and medicine which gives health, out of these divine elements deriving what was needful for human life, and adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to them. All this order and arrangement the goddess first imparted to you when establishing your city; and she chose the spot of earth in which you were born, because she saw that the happy temperament of the seasons in that land would produce the wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected and first of all settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest herself. And there you dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones, and excelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciples of the gods.

Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end.

This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent.

Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.

This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind.

She was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars.

But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.

I have told you briefly, Socrates, what the aged Critias heard from Solon and related to us. And when you were speaking yesterday about your city and citizens, the tale which I have just been repeating to you came into my mind, and I remarked with astonishment how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost every particular with the narrative of Solon; but I did not like to speak at the moment. For a long time had elapsed, and I had forgotten too much; I thought that I must first of all run over the narrative in my own mind, and then I would speak. And so I readily assented to your request yesterday, considering that in all such cases the chief difficulty is to find a tale suitable to our purpose, and that with such a tale we should be fairly well provided.

And therefore, as Hermocrates has told you, on my way home yesterday I at once communicated the tale to my companions as I remembered it; and after I left them, during the night by thinking I recovered nearly the whole it. Truly, as is often said, the lessons of our childhood make wonderful impression on our memories; for I am not sure that I could remember all the discourse of yesterday, but I should be much surprised if I forgot any of these things which I have heard very long ago.

I listened at the time with childlike interest to the old man's narrative; he was very ready to teach me, and I asked him again and again to repeat his words, so that like an indelible picture they were branded into my mind. As soon as the day broke, I rehearsed them as he spoke them to my companions, that they, as well as myself, might have something to say. And now, Socrates, to make an end my preface, I am ready to tell you the whole tale. I will give you not only the general heads, but the particulars, as they were told to me.

The city and citizens, which you yesterday described to us in fiction, we will now transfer to the world of reality. It shall be the ancient city of Athens, and we will suppose that the citizens whom you imagined, were our veritable ancestors, of whom the priest spoke; they will perfectly harmonise, and there will be no inconsistency in saying that the citizens of your republic are these ancient Athenians.